The words 'Rings of Power Review, Episode 8', overlaid on top of images from the episode Alloyed
Alliances, Rings and Revelations: My Rings of Power Season Finale Review

Alliances, Rings and Revelations: My Rings of Power Season Finale Review

In the lead-up to Ep8, I was scrolling Instagram and saw an Amazon post advertising the Rings of Power Season Finale which said, ‘All Will Be Revealed’. I scoffed, thinking there was no way all could actually be revealed. After watching the Season Finale, I have to admit, far more was revealed than I ever expected! The ROP Season Finale features the reveal of Sauron, a potential name for The Stranger, AND the creation of three rings of power! Of course there’s more, but that in itself is a lot. So let’s get into it!

Alloyed

You’re probably used to the drill by now, let’s start this review with a quick analysis of the episode title. The season finale is no exception. Ep8’s title, Alloyed, immediately had my mind racing with possibilities. According to the OED, the definition of alloy is,

‘To mix one metal with another, especially one of lower value’.

This obviously made me think of forging metals (like rings, hey?) and smithwork, and I got excited. One of the storylines I’ve been looking forward to most is the actual making of the rings of power. I mean, it’s the show’s name after all. After seven episodes with hardly any clues, I was so ready to get into it. But I did not expect to see so much all at once, in one episode! It’s fascinating how the episode deals with the combination of Mithril with other ores to create something greater, an allot. The title works with the definition quite nicely.

The Amazon episode summary also offers some interesting information: ‘New alliances are forged.’ Well, many certainly were! Let’s break them down, shall we?  

Eyrn Galen – The Greenwood

This episode highlights The Stranger at the climax of his identity crisis, right from the start of the episode. We first see the Stranger alone in a rainy forest. He spots a small figure, who initially looks like Nori. But she quickly gets the creepiest look on her face, and sure enough, turns into the Dweller, the leader of the creepy trio. Apparently she’s got some pretty incredible shape-shifting abilities. The Dweller offers the Stranger the apple he dropped, which felt to me a bit like a Serpent-tempting-Eve situation. Then the whole creepy trio descends, declaring they are there to serve The Stranger, and calling him Lord Sauron. Cue the title sequence.

What a dramatic opening. I didn’t believe the fake-out for a second. If the Stranger was Sauron, I think it would just be too bizarre for him to have such close dealings with the ancestors of hobbits, and then completely forget about their race in the Third Age. However, I am very curious as to why the trio thought the Stranger was Sauron in the first place?

The Stranger and the Creepy Trio (I don’t know what else to call them)

The creepy trio continues to tell the Stranger all kinds of things about himself. They’re convinced he’s Sauron, and seem to be trying to help him remember it too. They tell him that there’s a veil placed upon his mind, which is why he doesn’t remember who he is. But that veil will weaken as his powers grow. Further revelations come out about the constellation of stars we’ve seen the Stranger trying to find. The trio names the only place where this constellation is visible, The Hermit’s Hat. ‘Far to the east, where the stars are strange. The lands of Rhûn, where you will be known at last, for who you truly are.’

They reveal more facts, like how he fell from the stars, yet is greater than them. Fire obeys his will, and dust fears him. I’m unsure what to make of all this information. Is this all about Sauron, and not applicable to the Stranger, since we now know who Sauron actually is?

Band of Hobbits – Sadoc, Nori, Poppy, Marigold

In the meantime, the group of Harfoots (Sadoc, Marigold, Nori and Poppy) are on a rescue-the-Stranger mission. They locate the creepy trio, and spot the Stranger tied up between two trees. Deciding to make a move while the trio seems down to two members, they go to untie him. But the Dweller reveals her skills once again, having only posed as the Stranger to draw in the Harfoots.

The Harfoots put up quite a hardy fight, banding together to protect each other. I appreciated the stone throwing, which reminded me a lot of the four hobbits and their fighting maneuvers in the LOTR movies. Sadoc is a hero, but gets stabbed in the process. His death scene is actually one of the most emotional ones for me in the whole episode. The music, the lighting, his line that ‘the missus will be waiting’, and the camaraderie shown between all of the hobbits – I loved it all.

The Stranger and Nori

The alliance between the Stranger and Nori, which has been growing throughout the season, really comes to a head in Ep8. This becomes particularly clear during the Stranger’s encounter with the creepy trio.

The Stranger gets into a wizard-like duel with the Dweller, which felt very much like the duel between Gandalf and Saruman in the FOTR. The Dweller then shouts what I believe are the only words we’ve heard her speak, ‘Make him [the Stranger] see.’ See what exactly? I’m not sure. Maybe they’re trying to break down the veil and make the Stranger see that he is Sauron? I’m not sure what actually happens here, but it seems like the trio makes the Stranger see something.

For in the next scene, Nori gives the Stranger the Dweller’s staff and tries to coax him into helping the Harfoots, saying ‘Take it. We need you. Please, just take it.’ Which, by the way, felt like when Frodo urged Gandalf to take the One Ring from him in FOTR. But the Stranger looks at Nori with a defeated look, and tells her, ‘Get away from me. Or I will hurt you. Again…They showed me what I am.’ It seems like the creepy trio showed the Stranger who they thought he was or wanted him to be, aka Sauron/someone who would hurt Nori, and that he believed them.

Nori totally saves the Stranger by telling him that, ‘Only you can show what you are. You choose by what you do.’ Which is a lot if you think about who they’re implying the Stranger is (more on that in a minute). The Stranger immediately acts on this advice, going after the creepy trio in a fight reminiscent of Gandalf’s encounter with the balrog in FOTR. ‘From shadow you came. To shadow I bit you return’, he thunders. And the creepy trio finally seems to realize that the Stranger is not Sauron. No, he is ‘the other, the Istar,’ they declare. The Stranger affirms this saying, ‘I’m good,’ which certainly proves their point but sounded rather lame.

There’s whooshing and screaming, the creepy trio turns into skeletal beings who could be dead-ringers for the Ringwraiths from FOTR. The Stranger then turns them into a swarm of moths who fly away. I found this whole sequence strange. Given all of the Gandalf-implying scenes with the Stranger, I couldn’t help but wonder if this moth moment was supposed to be another one?

Later on, the Stranger and Nori’s alliance solidifies further when her family urges her to go with the Stranger to Rhûn in his quest to discover who he truly is. The two set off on their own wizard-harfoot/hobbit adventure, after tearful farewells from everyone. All of this leads to the big question of the episode:

Is the Stranger Gandalf?

There’s been many hints as to the Stranger’s identity throughout this season. After Ep2, I felt quite confident ROP was hinting at a Gandalf appearance. In some ways, I think it makes a lot of sense for the Stranger to be Gandalf. He is the Istari (translated wise one, or wizard) meant to have the most knowledge and dealings with hobbits by the Third Age. 

The season finale pushes the potential Gandalf identity even more strongly. When Nori reaches the Stranger, ready to embark on their joint adventure, he tells her to lead off. This is similar to Gandalf telling Frodo to lead the way when the Fellowship departs from Rivendell in FOTR. Similarly, Nori says she doesn’t know which way to go. I half expected Nori to quote Frodo’s, ‘Mordor, Gandalf, is It right or left?’ The real kicker takes place soon after, when the Stranger says, ‘There’s a sweet smell on the air this way. When in doubt, Elanor Brandyfoot… always follow your nose’. This is exactly what Gandalf says to the hobbits in FOTR, when they’re lost in Moria.

Could the Stranger be a Blue Wizard?

Given all of this, it might seem like the Stranger is pretty decidedly Gandalf. But I was, and still am, holding out hope that the Stranger might be a blue wizard. I really think trying to recreate the magic Ian McKellen brought to Gandalf’s character in the LOTR movies would be a very tall order for Daniel Weyman and the ROP crew.

The identification of Rhûn as instrumental to the Stranger’s identity could be another point in the blue wizard column. Rhûn is the Elvish word for ‘east’ in Sindarin. It refers to the lands in eastern Middle-Earth, where the elves and men were first awoken. In Tolkien’s legendarium, the blue wizards are known for going into the deep regions of Rhûn, never to return. Interestingly, Sauron also used Rhûn as a hideout for some time, where he gathering Easterlings (the men who followed him) into his service.

The showrunners are also still referring to the Stranger by this title, and have not switched to calling him Gandalf. So it doesn’t seem to be a done deal yet. Personally, I think making the Stranger into a blue wizard would be way more original and fun to explore, since we really don’t know much about them from Tolkien’s writings. But we’ll just have to wait and see.

Númenor

Shifting to the land of Númenor, the season finale revealed developments both in Númenor, as well as on the ship of Númenorians returning from the Southlands/Mordor.

Pharazôn, The King and the Apprentices

There’s a sense of ominous waiting as we find the King lying in bed, deathly ill. Pharazon says to the apprentices, ‘Soon, he will travel that road which makes an end of every man who walks it. Black flags will fill our harbor. It will be our duty to forge for him a tomb, granting him the immortality in stone that no man, not even a king, can attain in life.’ The black flags filling the harbor comes to pass later in the episode. But what I found even more fascinating to see is Pharazon’s deep thoughts about immortality and death. Both become key points to political movements in Numenor throughout the Second Age.

Another short but critical scene happens between Eärien and the King. In a last gasp of delusional consciousness, the dying King mistakes Eärien for his daughter, Miriel, and instructs her to go up and look in the Palantir. He cautions her to be careful, for ‘I looked for too long. And now, I cannot separate what is from what was, what was from what will be.’ Eärien goes up, but the scene cuts off as she pulls the cloth off the Palantir, tantalizingly putting off what she saw. I wonder if she’ll the vision of the destruction of Númenor that Miriel saw on repeat? Or, it sounds like perhaps the King saw other visions as well, so will she have seen one of those? It’s a cliff-hanger which opens up numerous possibilities for next seasons.

Elendil and Queen Regent Míriel

One of my favorite exchanges from the season finale was the scene between Elendil and Queen Regent Miriel. We first come across them in the hull of the ship. Elendil catches Miriel counting steps as she adjusts to her blindness. A sweet scene ensues, revealing the pain and sacrifice of these survivors, how they console each other in the midst of their losses, and their willingness to continue to serve despite the cost.

In Ep7 I was surprised by how hard Elendil became, and how he seemed to turn away from Galadriel and the elves. Here in Ep8, the old Elendil is back, albeit more weary and sad, believing Isildur to be lost. I found the support and the strengthened alliance between these two leaders quite moving.

Elendil finishes their exchange with the line, ‘We have little choice than but to keep serving. And I, for one, will see to it that we make the end worth the price.’ I really like how this portrays the dichotomy of free will and fate that is so integral to Tolkien’s writings. He acknowledges that they have little choice but to keep serving, referring to fulfilling their fated roles. But he also says that he will see to it the end is worth the price, showing his own free will and the work he commits to putting in to make his future what he wishes it to be.

The scene concludes on the ill-omened note of seeing Numonor’s harbor full of ships with hoisted black sails, signaling the death of the King. I’m interested to see what will happen in Season 2, particularly politically between Pharazon and Miriel, now that Tar-Palantir is dead.

Eregion and the Forging of the Elvish Rings of Power

After 7 episodes with scant progress on the making of the rings of power, the Season Finale suddenly brought the making of three! Throughout the course of their creation, some new and noteworthy alliances are also forged.

The idea of the need for something like rings of power starts when Elrond reveals to Celebrimbor that the plan to save the elves with the dwarves’ mithril is a bust. All he has is the small piece of mithril that Durin gave to him. Celebrimbor gets a far off look in his eye and muses, ‘If only there was some way… of doing more with less’. He describes how the Sun itself ‘began as something no bigger than the palm of my hand.’ This is true in Tolkien’s canon too! In The Silmarillion, the Two Trees of Valinor produced one last fruit and flower before they died. The Valar took these and made them into the sun and the moon.

Elrond insists that they must inform Gil-galad of their failure. But the two are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Galadriel and Halbrand. Halbrand is healed with ‘Elvish medicine’, and his recovery leads to a major alliance.

Celebrimbor and Halbrand

Halbrand comes across Celebrimbor in his workshop. Interestingly, Celebrimbor refers to it in the past tense and in third person (‘This was the workshop of Celebrimbor’). Perhaps this is because he believes the elves are about to leave, and he already thinks of himself in the past tense, gone from these shores? Halbrand brings on the charm, extoling the virtues of Celebrimbor and saying that, ‘The master I apprenticed to used to speak of the wonders of your craft. I never dreamed that I’d ever get the chance to see them in person’. Who did Halbrand apprentice with? Well, spoiler alert, since we now know that Halbrand is Sauron, his master could have been Melkor himself, the chief evil entity of the First Age who passes the torch to Sauron.

Halbrand spots the jewels Celebrimbor was working with, saying he’s never seen anything like them, and also grabs the mithril calling it a ‘particular ore’. When he asks what it is, Celebrimbor describes it as ‘not enough’. Halbrand presses, ‘Couldn’t the right alloy also amplify those qualities?’ and the seed is planted. You can practically see the wheels turning with new possibilities in Celebrimbor’s mind. When Celebrimbor thanks Halbrand for his advice, Halbrand replies, ‘Call it…a gift.’ This is when I literally said ‘uh oh’, out loud, knowing that Sauron had likely just been revealed. This brief encounter with Halbrand already has a huge impact on Celebrimbor, and the two get cozier mighty fast as they begin working together.

Gil-galad and the Elves

This was the first episode where I felt Gil-galad spoke some truly wise words, so I was glad for that! Celebrimbor and Elrond come to him with the idea of creating an object with the power to save the race of Elves. It would be smaller than previously imagined, and circular in form, ‘allowing the light to arc back upon itself in one unbroken round, building to a power that is all but unbounded.’ Gil-galad recognizes the danger of this, saying ‘And you would place all that power upon the brow of one being?’ Even when Elrond proposes that this power be placed on his own head, he acknowledges, ‘Perilous are these whisperings’.

Gil-galad seems against this idea. But he also acknowledges that something needs to happen fast because the elves are running out of time. ‘Since the mountain of fire’s eruption, the Great Tree is all but bleeding leaves. Soon, the last will fall. And unless our people leave these shores, so shall we.’ I’m not entirely clear on what Gil-galad means here. So as the leaves fall, will the race of elves fade? Or fall like the leaves from the Great Tree? Is this like the petals from the rose in Beauty in the Beast?

Celebrimbor tries to make a case, using the worrying words, ‘We are on the cusp of crafting a new kind of power. Not of strength, but of spirit. Not of the flesh, but over flesh. This is…This is a power of the Unseen World’. These are the exact words that Adar said to Galadriel in Ep6, and she recognizes it. Galadriel’s face dawns with understanding (really fantastic acting from Morfydd Clarke. Gil-galad doesn’t buy it, commanding the group to disband and return to Lindon, before exiting the room.

Galadriel immediately asks Celebrimbor whether he heard those words from Halbrand, and Celebrimbor acts quite dazed and confused. This made me wonder if something deeper could be going on, some form of magic or deception that Sauron is enacting to make Celebrimbor think these thoughts are his own when in actuality they stem from Sauron. I don’t know how or when Halbrand would have had the time to say these words to Celebrimbor, but something is definitely up.

In the meantime, Elrond goes after Gil-galad, asking for three months, I suppose to try to make Celebrimbor’s plan work. Gil-galad, echoing the words of Gandalf from ROTK, says, ‘It is a fool’s hope, Elrond. Merely that. Nothing more.’ And Elrond cleverly repeats back the very words Gil-galad told him in Ep2: ‘Hope is never mere. Not even when it is meager.’ It seems that Elrond’s plea worked, because next thing we know, Celebrimbor, Halbrand and Elrond are working together, while Galadriel looks on at Halbrand suspiciously.

The Sauron Reveal, Oh You Sneaky Halbrand

We’ll take a brief pause in exploring the alliances of this episode to discuss the big bombshell of the Finale: the Sauron reveal. Did you guess it was Halbrand all along?

I’ll admit, I had not. Of course, there were several moments that came across as incredibly suspicious: his chance meeting with Galadriel in the middle of the Sundering Seas, his conversation with Galadriel after almost killing Adar, and especially his mysterious stab wound after the eruption of Mount Doom (I was feeling extremely distrustful after that one). But some other Halbrand moments seemed distinctly un-Sauron-like to me: saving Galadriel (which could have been because he wanted to ask Galadriel to rule at his side), saving Elendil (much less explainable), and the underlying tension that existed between Galadriel and Halbrand that hinted at a potential relationship brewing.

As Ep8 rolled on though, it became very clear who Halbrand was going to be. Galadriel senses it too, and she gets another elf to dig up information to check up on Halbrand’s backstory. The elf delivers, and this is why I said in Ep6 that there really should have been a vetting process before everyone just accepted Halbrand as King of the Southlands! Galadriel confronts Halbrand with the news that he could not be the heir to the throne, for the line was broken thousands of years ago. And we get Halbrand’s admission of his true identity. 

My first reaction was an appreciation for the line of dialogue: ‘I have been awake since before the breaking of the first silence.’ This sounds like a reference to the Song of the Ainur, described in the Ainulindale of The Silmarillion. Sauron is a Maia so would have been around even before the Ainur created Middle-Earth. 

My next reaction was to feel bad for poor Galadriel! She’s been on a vendetta against Sauron since Ep1, only to find that she’s been with him this whole time. In fact, Sauron shows her how everything that happened since they met was almost all orchestrated by Galadriel. Ouch.

The Test

The sequence of dreams and visions between the two is especially thought-provoking . It eminded me of how occlumency works in Harry Potter when someone breaks in to view memories in the mind. Galadriel goes back to the very beginning, where she’s dressed as she was when she was a little child in the opening of Ep1 in Valinor. Finrod returns to fully recreate the whole scene. Finrod reaching out his hand to pick up the fallen Galadriel feels a lot like when an older Galadriel offered her hand to Frodo when he hits his lowest point in Shelob’s lair in ROTK. Almost as if she’s gone back to her younger, more naïve self, Galadriel looks so lost and impressionable. She proceeds to have a full conversation with what looks like Finrod, but is really Sauron speaking through him.

Sauron/Finrod asks Galadriel if she remembers what he whispered to her all those years ago, and tells her to ‘touch the darkness once more’. BUT, all I could think was, how on Earth does Sauron know this in the first place? Did Sauron somehow gain access to this memory of Galadriel? Or know what Finrod had spoken to her in Valinor?

Or, a much more sinister possibility occurred to me. Could it have been Sauron all those years ago, telling Galadriel that ‘Sometimes we cannot know [which lights to follow] until we have touched the darkness’? I remember feeling uneasy about that statement the first time it was uttered. It would be crazy, and super creepy, to think that Sauron was hanging around all those little elf children and whispering deceptions to Galadriel so early on in Valinor – back when, as Galadriel said herself, ‘Nothing is evil in the beginning’? I’m not sure what else to think though.

The series of flashbacks continue, and Galadriel and Halbrand are back on the raft where they first met. Here Sauron brings his temptation to full force, offering to make her his Queen, and asking her to rule Middle-Earth with him side-by-side. He speaks eerily similar words to those used by Galadriel in FOTR when she’s tempted by the One Ring in Lothlorien.

I will say, a lot of this sequence feels incredibly dramatic because its so well acted, and it culminates in a pretty cool camera trick. We see Galadriel and Halbrand on the raft, and then the camera spins around to reveal the couple reflected in the water as the Dark Lord Sauron and a ruling Queen Galadriel, Sauron’s temptation embodied. But for me, unfortunately, this whole scene just takes away from Galadriel’s temptation in FOTR. The point of her ‘passing the test’ in Lothlorien when Frodo offers her the One Ring, is far less significant if she already passes the test here when Sauron himself asks her to rule Middle-Earth by his side. The end is also incredibly abrupt. When she refuses, Sauron brings Galadriel back to when she was drowning under the raft, and he just disappears. Did Sauron think he left Galadriel to die by drowning?

Galadriel and Elrond

Galadriel is pulled from the waters by Elrond. There’s a Frodo-Sam moment when Galadriel holds her dagger to Elrond’s neck, not trusting he isn’t Sauron in disguise, like Frodo did to Sam at the end of the Two Towers movie. But it’s fair enough, given what she’s just been through. Elrond’s proof of evidence is enough to tug at the heart strings of even the hardest people. Apparently Galadriel first met Elrond  by the seaside, when Elrond was first orphaned. He was  ‘alone. A young, half-elven boy, without friend or kin.’ And Galadriel offered him water. I’m not crying, are you? But also, where was Elros, Elrond’s twin brother?

The more scenes I see Elrond and Galadriel in together, the more I want to see. I can’t help thinking whenever I do see these two together, that Galadriel is supposed to become Elrond’s mother-in-law, and I felt a little more of this dynamic in their scenes together in this episode. After this sweet scene I love Elrond even more than I already did.

And Then There Were 3

Satisfied that Elrond truly is who he says he is, Galadriel runs off to find Celebrimbor. Surprisingly Galadriel doesn’t bring up Sauron’s identity at all, or seem concerned that Sauron was so integral in the making of the rings. Instead she deems there needs to be three rings, instead of two, for: ‘One will always corrupt. Two will divide. But with three, there is balance.’ Galadriel also states that the rings they make ‘must be for the elves alone, untouched by other hands’. Celebrimbor reveals that he needs gold and silver of the highest quality, which equals Galadriel’s dagger because it’s from Valinor. He repeats the line ‘true creation requires sacrifice.’ This is exactly what he said to Elrond in Ep2 after detailing Feanor’s creation of the Silmarils.

The forging commences, and the scenes showing the crafting of the rings are absolutely stunning. Something is still nagging Elrond though, so he goes back to where he saved Galadriel, and finds the scroll she dropped. It’s unclear whether Elrond sees that Halbrand is not the heir to the Southlands throne because it was broken, or that Halbrand is Sauron. But he definitely knows something is up. Elrond climbs back up a winding stair, which feels very Lothlorien-esque, in time for the final reveal of the three rings. They’re sparklingly beautiful, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. Celebrimbor in particular looks very pleased with his creation.

The episode concludes with a close-up of the three elvish rings, and then transitions to the rings appearing in the eye of Sauron. Yes, we finally get the image of the eye of Sauron, one episode after Ep7’s The Eye. I find this shot quite an interesting artistic choice. In Tolkien’s canon, the three elvish rings were the only rings of power unsullied by Sauron’s hand. They were created apart from his influence, which is why they were not pulled under the sway of Sauron’s One Ring, created to ‘rule them all’. But the depiction of the rings in this episode makes it seem like the elvish rings were very much created with Sauron’s influence, cementing it with this end shot. I’m very curious to see how it will all work when we (hopefully) get more rings of power into the mix over the following seasons.

A Note on Time

The way this episode is cut, it’s hard for me to grasp the timeline of events. It almost looks like most of the creation of the elf rings happens in one day! Galadriel and Co are wearing the same clothes throughout at least. But Elrond does mention to Celebrimbor that they’re completing a work in three weeks that should take three centuries. So perhaps this is a three-week period – where no one really changes their outfits?

Fav Quotes

This post has gone on long enough! I’ll just leave you with some of my fav quotes from the episode:

  • Elrond: ‘Constraint can be the very progenitor of invention.’
  • Sadoc: ‘In the grand tradition of bad ideas, this might be the worst yet.’ The Harfoots’ dialogue is so good at making me smile.
  • Elrond: ‘Patience, this is a journey. Not every step will be forwards.’
  • The Stranger: ‘Betimes, our paths are laid before us by powers greater than our own. In those moments, it’s our task to make our feet go where our hearts wish not to tread.’ Sounds a lot like Gandalf’s famous quote to Frodo in Moria, no?
  • Elendil: ‘Come then. I have you’. Miriel: ‘And who has you?’

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